CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



educated under a monarchical form of govern- 

 ment. Some of them had certain ideas about 

 the executive power derived from their educa- 

 tion. I do not intend to impeach their wisdom, 

 but they lacked our experience. We have seen 

 the operation and effect of this power; we have 

 seen how dangerous it can become in the hands 

 of a bold, bad man; we have seen how it can 

 be used to debauch the public mind. When 

 the mischief is so great and obvious, it is our 

 duty, regardless of precedents, to apply the 

 remedy. Believing that there is nothing in the 

 provisions of this bill which, is in conflict with 

 the Constitution, I hope that it will become a 

 law. I trust it will not be regarded as any mere 

 party measure, but as an honest effort to bring 

 back the Government to the purposes and views 

 of the men who made it." 



Mr. Buckalew, of Pennsylvania, said: "Mr. 

 President, I listened yesterday with very much 

 of interest and attention to the remarks of the 

 Senator from Oregon (Mr. Williams), in support 

 of the bill before the Senate ; but I listened in 

 vain for a statement by him, distinctly and clear- 

 ly made, of the ground of power upon which this 

 bill was reported, and its passage proposed. I 

 understood him, however, at one stage of his 

 argument, to take the ground which was origin- 

 ally taken when this question was discussed in 

 the Congress of 1789, by most of those who then 

 opposed the construction given to the Constitu- 

 tion upon this subject, to wit : that the power 

 of removing from office, in our Government, 

 arose by implication from the provision which 

 confers upon the President the power of ap- 

 pointment, ' by and with the advice and consent 

 of the Senate.' If this bill be pressed upon 

 that ground upon the ground that there is an 

 implied power in the President and the Senate 

 to remove from office, because they are joined 

 together for the purpose of appointment it 

 will inevitably follow that this bill will stand 

 condemned; it cannot be justified upon the 

 ground which is stated in its support. 



"Mr. President, there are but two possible 

 locations, in this Government, for the power of 

 removal under the Constitution of the United 

 States ; and I say this in view of former discus- 

 sions, and in view of the expressed opinions of 

 leading men, at different periods of our history, 

 both those who have been concerned in the 

 enactment and execution of the laws, and those 

 who have written expositions of the Constitu- 

 tion as scholars in the retiracy of their closets. 



"If this power to remove be one conferred 

 by the Constitution, it must be vested in the 

 President of the United States alone, who is the 

 head of the executive department, and charged 

 with the execution of the laws, or it must be 

 vested in the President by and with the advice 

 and consent of the Senate, upon the ground of 

 implication which I have already mentioned. 

 If the power be not vested in the President 

 alone, or in the President and the Senate, it is 

 located nowhere; it exists nowhere; and the 

 argument in favor of the enactment of a law 



proposing to vest it anywhere, must be upon 

 the ground that it is an ideal or latent power 

 which may be created or called into active ex- 

 istence by virtue of those general powers of 

 legislation which are vested in the Congress of 

 the United States. But inasmuch as this is a 

 government of granted and vested powers, and 

 inasmuch as the grants to Congress are specific 

 upon the very statement of the point itself, 

 the conclusion must be against it. We must 

 reject the argument and recur back to the al- 

 ternative before mentioned. Before I am done, 

 I will read authorities upon these several points, 

 by which my statement of them will be fully 

 vindicated. 



"I say, then, that the Senator from Oregon, 

 in his argument in favor of this bill, was not 

 satisfactory in his statement of the ground of 

 power upon which he claimed that we could 

 enact it. Taking for granted that he stands 

 upon the ground that this is a power arising 

 'by implication and by virtue of the Constitu- 

 tion vested in the President and in the Senate, 

 how stands his bill? Why, sir, upon that im- 

 plication this power must be exclusive in the 

 President and in the Senate ; neither can bo 

 divested of it ; nor can the law-making pow- 

 er charge its exercise upon one to the ex- 

 clusion of the other. And yet, what does this 

 bill do? You propose bylaw to provide that 

 the President shall suspend from office an 

 exercise of the power of removal to a certain 

 extent, and standing upon the same grounds of 

 argument as the absolute and complete power 

 of removal itself. If your argument be sound, 

 you cannot by law provide that the President 

 shall suspend, that he shall make a partial re- 

 moval from office, without the advice and con- 

 sent of the Senate, before the suspension is 

 made or ordered. 



" Equally clear is it, upon the very face of 

 this bill, that the main, the important exception 

 which is made, and properly and necessarily 

 made from it, is, in this view, unconstitutional 

 to wit, the exception of the several heads of 

 departments from the operation of this pro- 

 posed law. If the President and Senate are by 

 the Constitution united for the purpose of re- 

 moval as well as appointment, it will follow 

 that you cannot, as you propose by this bill, 

 permit the President alone to remove the heads 

 of the executive departments -the principal 

 officers who are associated with him in the exe- 

 cution of the laws. 



"Your bill, then, stands condemned upon 

 this ground, which is the only ground, in my 

 opinion, that can be with any plausibility urged 

 in its support. The premises from which you 

 proceed will not justify the conclusion at which 

 you arrive. 



"But let us examine this senatorial 'preten- 

 sion ' upon other grounds of expediency and 

 policy. 



" In the first place, it transfers power over 

 removals to a body of men who are less respon- 

 sible than the President, both to the people 



